Salena Knight 0:02
Hey there, and welcome to the bringing business to retail podcast. If you're looking to get more sales, more customers, master your marketing, and ultimately take control of your retail or E commerce business, then you're in the right place. I'm Celina Knight, a retail growth strategist and multi award winning store owner whose superpower is uncovering exactly what your business requires. To move to the next level, I'll provide you with the strategies, the tools and the insight you need to scale your store. All you need to do is take action, ready to get started?

Salena Knight 0:51
Hey there, and welcome to today's episode of The bringing pieces to retail podcast. You know, when you walk into a store, and there's music played? Well, actually, I'm going to reverse that and say, Have you ever walked into a store and there was no music playing? Because quite often, we don't even register that there is music going on in a store. But I know that that few times when I've been into a store and there is no music, it always feels just a little bit dead and creepy. Well, did you know that if you are playing music in your business, there's a very good chance that your customers will stay longer, and that they will spend more. And Dean from store play is here to tell us how it's going to work. Dean, you are an X DJ. I am. Is that how you got it? You tell us how you got into music and retail. Yeah, thank you. And thank you for having me on here. Selena. So yeah, look, I started DJing about the age of 17. My mum used to be just a couple of years ago then just to it depends how old you think I am actually so. So yeah, and my mom used to drive me to gigs. Back then I was just sort of doing parties when I was about 17 I sort of blagged my way onto the decks at a party and rocking and then got sort of offered a job. And that was sort of the start of my my DJing career. And when I finished school, I sort of started studied marketing,

Dean Cherny 2:22
at Monash University at that Caulfield campus. And throughout all my time at uni, I kept DJing. And when I got to my final year assignment, we had to do something and I thought, Well, how about I combine my passion for DJing with I won't say my love of marketing, but with my marketing degree. And I set up in a an assignment and my final year assignment was essentially setting up an install music business. So as part of that we actually had to present to a retailer. So my, my lecture brought in someone from Portman's and I presented to them and

Dean Cherny 3:02
yeah, I walked out of that, that presentation, and said, We love what you do. We think this is really interesting. It's different to what's in the market. I didn't even know there was really anything in the market, when I sort of came up with the idea. And they said, Will you do our music? So I literally rolled out of university with my first client being Portmans. And, you know, the irony is only got to pass for the assignment.

Salena Knight 3:30
And we recently moved house actually, and I found the assignment and I have to say, well, the concept was very good. The assignment was pretty average. So you know, but here we are 34 years later. And you know, that one, you know, client has now grown into, you know, to hundreds. Okay, so I just want to, I just want to talk about how you only got a pass, because they have brought in a leading Australian fashion retailer for you to pitch it. I mean, that must have been really scary to begin with. But I don't know back when you're like 1920 I feel like nothing is scary. But, but having to pitch in and of itself, the fact that you did that, you should have got a pass just for turning up and presenting the pitch. Because if anyone has ever pitched we know how hard it really is, it is like I was one for one. So

Dean Cherny 4:23
I reckon it's pretty good at that point. So, you know, look, it's quite, it's quite funny. Like, anyway, if I got a if I got a distinction I wouldn't have made as good as story and I probably wouldn't tell it as much. So these are the fact that I got a pass, you know, and they did at some point, invite me back to speak about entrepreneurship, which is also sort of really nice, although that never that never eventuated with I'd love to do it. I'd love to sort of give back and, and share the journey that I've sort of been on over the last 34 years because I think it's important to sort of pay it forward for the next generation. Okay, so walk

Dean Cherny 5:00
me through. And I love that, by the way, walk me through what you discovered when you put this assignment together. And I guess how that differs to what you know now with decades of research and industry experience? Yeah, so at the time, there was probably one player in the market. And they essentially made four different kinds of cassettes. And for those that you don't like cassettes, because there's probably a few of you that don't, because I don't think my daughters would get 10 and 12, you know, essentially, you know, this little plastic thing at two wheels, and you'd stick it in the tape player, and you'd have 90 minutes of music across two sides. And, you know, so there were four that were made, I think there was, there was a pop, an easy listening, a radical and an instrumental. And maybe there was a fifth that was classical, but no one really took that, except for probably some very high end, you know, wine cellars, and I can talk about that as well, because there was a study that was done on that debt. So when I came into it as a DJ, you know, I've been playing gigs like 20 firsts. The years, you know, I was 21. At the time I was doing like, over 49, I couldn't believe I have a 40s went out and went to nightclubs. So oh, hold tight. Oh, and here I am now, and I'm looking back at it and going, I can't believe I these kids are looking at me like this.

Dean Cherny 6:28
But that's a whole nother story. I went dancing the other day. And I have to say the other day, the other night. And I have to say kids today need to learn a little, little something, something from people our age about what it means to dance. Yes, I think they're too busy with devising and not present and listening to the music. But so I came at it from this DJ who was so used to catering to different markets and moving a dance floor. So my pitch that I differentiated myself from, you know, the incumbent that was in the market was we'll do a customized. So at that time, you know, it was esprits, Sportsgirl, Portmans, banneton, all of those brands are literally all playing the same 90 minute cassette every month. So you can almost go door to door and hear the same music. And I'm like, Well, you know, your brand differs to those one might be a little bit more wholesome, I might be a little bit more sort of edgy. So I'll make you a type that will differ from your competitors. And that was really the unique selling proposition which really resonated and sort of allowed me to sort of, you know, scale the business as such at the time. And, you know, it so much has changed since then, you know, there were lots of studies back then sort of that, and most of them were clinical studies. And I think that's a really important thing to sort of understand the difference between a sort of a clinical study where they sort of measure one part, but don't take into the whole part of the business. So you know, the studies at the time were slow music means that you walk slow as you spend more time in a store. And that's correct. You know, anyone that's sort of training at the gym, you know, when they're doing a cardio workout, they want it upbeat, maybe if they don't wait, it's a bit more urban and hip hoppy, because they're sort of grinding a bit more and stuff. And that's great for one side of things. But what none of these studies ever looked at is how that affects the staff and the team members within the school. Yes. Just go back to your cassette days. Remember, we used to cassette 45 minutes each side, same music all the time, it gets pretty bloody repetitive. So how does it affect the staff? Well, you know, repetition.

Dean Cherny 8:47
I think just constant repetition can make you go mad. So they used to have it. So interestingly, at the time, there was a company that it had a three cassette player mechanism where you could stick three cassette plate cassettes in, and if there was a gap in the song would actually stop and then play one or the other. So it almost could do shuffle on cassette. So that would give you four and a half hours of music because the cassettes were constantly stopping and starting and doing those kinds of things that take us to stretch and then they started sounding wonky, so it became a lot easier when we got onto CDs. And you could have five CDs on shuffle. You know, other than the gaps that were there. But you know, going back to that point when you're playing slow music, it disenfranchises the staff because there's no energy in a store. So while you might have a customer that might be lingering longer in the store, your staff are demotivated. So, you know, that balance was never sort of worked out in those studies. So they would say, you know, you wouldn't be able to have customers spend more more time in store, you know, and then I would say so that will equate to more sales because they're going slower and seeing things you know, I knew just from

Dean Cherny 10:00
It research that we did by going into stores and talking to customers and the staff in stores, because they're ultimately the ones that are having to deal with it, that they wanted energy, they wanted to be, you know, vitalized by the music. So, you know, we used to sort of create this wave that would sort of try and go up and down on our cassettes, I remember, you know, I sort of had this three step, you know, slow, medium couple upbeat, then sort of slow down. So the music was constantly going through a wave. And that allowed me to sort of be able to program those cassettes no matter what time of day it was. So the mornings were never too hard, or, you know, the evenings, whenever to sort of, to sort of dial but you know, now with modern technology, we can program different music to play almost by the minute by the song. So you know, as we get more into using AI, and, you know, people counters in store, we pull that data in, and if it's busy, we can go up tempo. And, you know, if it's the morning, that's acoustic up tempo, but if it's the evening, and or the weekend, it's up tempo, and it's more electronic, you know, based on the brand and, and then the brand archetype, which we work with, okay, I want to get into brand archetypes. But I think what you just said, there was a really important point for anyone who is playing any kind of music in their business, which is, at different points of the day, both our customers and our staff are going to have a different level of energy and require a different level of energy coming back at them. So can you just recap for me? Was it acoustic and upbeat in the morning? Well, yeah, because I don't think, you know, this is my philosophy, like you can have the energy, but you don't want it to be sort of put, it's kind of dance music, like I was dancing at the

Dean Cherny 11:56
first thing in the morning, not for your customers. So one thing that we allow, is that we can we can schedule the music, but before the store opens, the staff can sort of play anything off the program. So if they want to pump jobs up before they start work, because they're stocking the shelves, and they're doing those kinds of things, you know, great, go for it, but the moment you hit 9am, if that's your opening time, then it goes into, you know, the music that we're doing. And then, you know, as you're sort of like late night shopping, you know, you're gonna want that energy, you know, it's your staff might be a little bit more tired. It's sort of getting into that evening, you know, people that are shopping at seven or eight on a Friday night, you know, they're gonna want that they're not going to want to sort of walk into a store, and sort of you downtempo music, like you're trying to wrap up, you know, because most of those people need that energy. And we'd like that energy in those times. Okay, if it's everything's and I'm just gonna, I'm gonna have to write myself notes. So I remember to get back to these things. Can we go into brand archetypes because this is something I am really passionate about, I found out about, I'm going to say about 10 years ago, I kind of stumbled into brand archetypes. And the more I learned love being a bit of a pop psychologist, by the way, but the more I learned about psychology and how we relate to different things in our environment, and how we relate to things subconsciously like numbers, and scents and music, it's for me, I am all on board in the brand psychology train. So can you maybe give us just a quick overview of what brand archetypes are, and then jump into how important they are when we're looking at the kinds of music that we're going to put into our business. Yeah, so we sort of got into brand archetypes. About five years ago, we worked with a brand archetype company called Brand oni and I think it was an evolution of, of us thinking about music. So even going back to those first cassettes, and even my versions of them, you know, they were all very genre based. So it was like a pop cassette, or an easy listening. And even though I might have made Walkmans, the one that was a different mix of puppet was very much pop. And then over time, I sort of started to think about how that really didn't represent exactly what that customer was or what that brand bought. That was sort of where it sort of led me down the rabbit hole of of brand archetypes. So there's 12 different brand archetypes, you know, there's one like the creator, the caregiver, the innocent, the jester, the magician, the ruler, the hero, the regular guy, the rebel, the Explorer, the law, and all of these different ones. And I think, as I said, each of those probably gives you a different emotion that you feel so you

Dean Cherny 15:00
One of the companies that we recently started working with is Rm Williams.

Dean Cherny 15:05
It probably doesn't surprise you that that'd be an explorer Explorer. So, so I just try to think the best way for people who maybe aren't in Australia, they sell more country wear, but urban people can wear it as well. But boots, button down shirts, blouses, yeah. A little bit. A little bit fancy country. Yeah. Famous. They're famous for their boots seats. Yeah, they're high end boots, and beautiful. They originally started as sort of workmen boots, that, you know, they've really sort of elevated it, I'm wearing a pair right now. They're absolutely beautiful and comfortable, I can stand in them all day at my standing desk. And the other kinds of things are almost get hand handed down. So but they're in it's, they're an explorer brand, which probably makes sense based on that. And so when I was to, you know, stepping back, you might think, okay, so what music would you play at RM Williams, and it's like, well, you know, their customer is anything from, you know, 24, you know, 20 year old people who have just sort of got their first job and want a nice pair of shoes to wear, you know, to guys that are working on ranches, throughout outback Australia, and they get a lot of international tourists. So they're so well known that international tourists come here. So when you think about that, you know, how do you bring all of that together, musically, and by looking through the filter of an explorer, it gives you this lens, so it doesn't sort of lock you into, well, that's pop, or it's rock, it actually lets you do anything, you know, it allows me to sort of put on some great Australian sort of what I would consider explore music, great southern lands, maybe Midnight Oil in excess kind of thing. But it also then allows me to go into something that might be modern Australia, and like a go to track or even international, Ben Harper kind of seeing and, or even Americana, some Johnny Cash kind of thing. And so when you look at it like that, and all of those songs, they've got this particular feel to them. And when you put them all together as a soundtrack, it feels very different to the idea of just are they going to be sort of a pop and rock client, and isn't that and so, the breadth of that music A makes the program far more interesting. And we also then break it up based on the demographic so, you know, the Sydney, Aaron Williams still gets a lot of international tourists that probably has a far more international feel to it, you know, it's got that Australian fuel because they're, you know, very Australian brand plus that international, but when you sort of go to Rockhampton, you know, which is really regional area.

Salena Knight 17:58
I probably don't need that kind of stuff, they're probably going to be happy with a little bit more sort of Australian country, maybe some American country we have we ever saying that in our house. It's a little bit country. It's a little bit cool country. Yeah. So you know, and I think that lens makes it makes it a really nice way to be able to look at it. And I think I, you know, I think you said it was a hero. Oh, yes. So our brand is the hero. And it makes sense, because the hero is the person who is always pushing you forward. Like they're always pushing you out of your comfort zone, comfort zone and giving you that kind of cheerleader and enthusiasm that you need to break through boundaries. But by the same token, they're prepared to work with you to show you how to get there. So it's not just, you know, you can do it, it's like you can do it. And we're going to show you, we're going to be here with you, we're going to show you how and when I discovered that it's one of those. Every time I've ever taken one of those psychological tests, it freaks me out a little bit because they are always so on the money. I remember when, in my first ever real job where I had when I worked for the government, they did disc profiling. And I came out as 100% D, which if anyone is aware of disk that is very big picture thinker. I think in dot points, like the attention to detail, not my strong suit, but it's like that's you to the kind of people who change the world because there's only 3% of the world or us thank goodness because we're just a little bit powerhouse and so are gonna be getting it and bursting into tears when I got home going. I sound like a monster. Like, ooh, I sound like a dictator in this thing in the behavioral profile. But of course as you grow a little bit older, you realize that the strength is you are a really good leader and you are able to think outside. You know, I don't know I always say my brain just doesn't work like everybody else's. I don't know if that's because I had a brain

Salena Knight 20:00
knee injury when I was five, but he's a really good example of how my brain works. We have a new retailer who came on board and the team told me, We we've just signed up someone who has a blind shop. And I said, Oh my God, that's awesome, like stuff for blind people. And they all looked at me with no, no, like, curtains and blinds, and my brain didn't even go there. It's working on a whole

Salena Knight 20:26
different level, back to hero archetype. I, my style of music is very hip hop. I love dance music. But I appreciate that that's not necessarily what my customers are looking for. And so you were kind enough to share your hero playlist with me. And I have to say, even though a lot of those were not in the genre that I would listen to at home, I knew every single song, I could almost sing along with every single song except some of the really, really poppy ones. And I totally appreciated that if I was playing that in my organization, if we had an office rather than a remote team, and we were sitting there and playing it, it would really like vibe up the team, like they would be on point as to what we were going to achieve. So I'm always a convert, but when you share it with me, I was I'll be honest, I was a little bit skeptical. And then I was listening to it, I put it on. And I think it goes for about three or four hours. And I put it on for the whole day after I spoke to you. And I was like, Yeah, I'm on board. Yeah. Oh, good. And Heidi, obviously a bit skeptical.

Dean Cherny 21:38
To be best to be expected. And it doesn't need to be commercial as well, like, we put those playlists together to really sort of give that example that people can lean to but you know, the studies have also shown that, you know, having less like right fit music, that less commercial, or less than nine actually better, performs better in a retail environment than actually only having really well known using. So really, yeah, why do you think that is? Because I think retail should be aspirational. I don't think retail stores really want to sound like the radio and the radio, we're just trying to keep you playing those hits. And I think people when they go into a retail and especially a strong brand, you know, they have a level of trust for them. And if the music's interesting and a little bit different, it can keep them there that little bit longer. Because it's like, oh, that's a cool track, I haven't heard that like, and then they associate that positive learning experience with that brand as well. And the brand just gets a little uptick. And it just creates that better engagement with that brand where they sort of have better brand recall, you know, and a little bit more trust in that brand. You know, can I throw something else out there, as you were saying that it made me think of something different, in addition to what you've said, which is, I like alternative music. And if I go into a store, and I remember when you shared that playlist with me, and you're reading out some of them, and you and you shared it with me and I opened it up and the first band on top was the hilltop was and I'm like, oh my god, it's got my favorite band on there. And he said, you said, I didn't really mention that one, because I didn't know if you would know them. And I'm like, literally my most favorite band. But where I'm going with this is if I was in a store, and I heard and there's something that I resonate with, like the hilltop boards, or like one of those alternative media, all of a sudden, I feel like you get me like this is a place where I belong, I will have tuned out all of the other things because I don't really care. But when there is that song that I love that I know is not a popular song. It just it would make me think this is the right place for me. You're 100% Like that's so true. You know, and I think what conversely to that is, you know, people you don't need, it's supposed to happen very subconsciously. So what you will not, I don't want customers necessarily noticing the music. Because if they're noticing the music, there's in most likelihood it's going to be something that's jarring to them. So that's when you can get that negative reaction to customers are more inclined to notice the music when they don't like it. Yeah, because it's sort of like the lighting and the styling, and the sense in which we do and all of those kinds of things. If it works as a complete picture, then it just is that you shouldn't notice it. That's the brand. You don't sort of walk in and go oh my god, they've styled that beautifully on that rack, you know, because it's just the way that is and then you walk into some stores where it's all over the place and it's like well, you know, the store is always messy, like that's the brand kind of thing music is is the same kind of you know, that sensory experience, which is what we try and leave

Salena Knight 25:00
into. That's interesting what you just said there like you almost shouldn't notice it. So I have a question is bad music better than no music because I said right back at the beginning, that if I walk into a store, and again, you don't notice it unless it's not there. So walking into a store with no music, which you can quite often have with independent stores, because maybe they haven't thought about music, or maybe they haven't bought a license to play music. Or maybe it's just someone forgot to press play on whatever they're playing. But you notice it by its absence. And I always feel a little bit pressured and a little bit like, everyone's going to stare at me, or someone's going to come and help me if I see if I need help. Even if I don't, if I'm just browsing, like, you just kind of waiting for someone to pounce on you. And it gives you a very different feeling to that feeling of music that you haven't even noticed. So in that case is bad music better than no music. That means it's the worst. Like, in all honesty, the biggest differential there was a study that was done out of out of Sweden in a fast food chain. And so the differential between bad music and the right fit music was about 9.3% I think it was potential as in sales or revenue. Yeah, yeah. Revenue,

Speaker 1 26:25
nearly temporarily 10% drop in sales? Or can we just get it? Is it a 10% drop in sales for bad music or a 10%? increase in sales for right fit music? Because they're very different things. So it's a drop in in sales. So I think, if we use I think, no music as the baseline of what it is, I think it was about nearly 6% for the right fit music increase. And I think it was about three and a half percent below for the wrong fit music. Wow. So let me just let me just clarify here for people who are not listening to Dean. If we get music, right, if you have a bricks and mortar store and you get music, right, you could potentially see the stats say, a 6% uplift in revenue, just for picking the right music. Yes. And if you're playing the wrong music, you could see currently if you're not doing well, yeah, you'd essentially see

Salena Knight 27:29
close to a 10% uplift. So if you're doing it, it's the wrong view. And it's just not resonating. Essentially, what it's saying is you're almost pushing customers out the door. They're not going to stay engaged, as long as it's like, well, I don't want to be here, this doesn't suit me, this doesn't fit with me. This brand isn't me ongoing. You know, that's mine, that is literally mind blowing. Like in an economy. I mean, everyone always wants more revenue. Everyone always wants more bottom line. But in a time right now, where the economy is a little bit or people have tightened economically, we're looking at ways that we can beat our competition, we can grab that sale from somebody else. And I'm going to err quote here and say simple. I understand it is not simple. I understand there's a very complex process behind this. But something as simple in air quotes, as getting music, right, would increase your revenue by nearly 10%. And that is game changing? Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I think it is. Like, I think the thing is, as well, as you know, at that point, you've got them in the store, like you've actually done the work, you know, everything that you've done to get a customer into store, you know, you've already paid for, you know, whether that was online marketing, or your digital signage at the front of the store, like so you've got them there. So it really seems like it's it's wasteful, to not think about that case. Because if you're, you know, if you're then spending money here, but costing yourself here, it just doesn't make sense. Okay, I have a question for you, which is that taking brand archetypes into account because I think that is key here. But how do we take our customer's taste in music because we've talked about different genres and different types of music. How do we take that and make sure that when we're putting this compilation together, our team in store aren't just playing whatever they want? Because I've got to say, I know that you are I think you guys work with one of the big supermarkets here. And I was in one of the supermarkets the other day, and a song I like came on and that song has a lot of curse words in it. And I could not believe that I was I literally turned to my drone and I went

Salena Knight 29:52
that is not the radio edit

Unknown Speaker 29:55
was

Salena Knight 29:56
not us. And I it was clear from the music that this was not something that

Dean Cherny 30:00
would have been supermarket approved, someone had gotten to wherever the music was playing and playing their version of what they wanted to hear. And this was not late in the evening, it was not before and after close, this was like 10am primetime old people shopping. Wow. Was it an independent? Just by? No, it was one of the big two. Wow. Okay, so I wouldn't be happy with that. So, well, look, I'm explicit lyrics, you know, we run lyric checks to, you know, overall, the music, it's actually a pretty challenging piece of what we do. Because one person explicit these days is fine for another. And sometimes it's not about the explicit words that are in there. It's the messaging be implied because it can be misogynist, and things like that. So yeah, that's a, that's a whole extra ballgame you have to go into. It's pretty fun, far more challenging. I do remember, actually, this was actually I had to recall a cassette one time for Portmans. And this is a funny story, because this is again, carbon dating me but I'd stuck a column and aux track on there called Step back in time. And at the start of it, she she starts, I want to funk I want to funk I want to F F, you f u n, k. And there were a lot of people in store that misheard that for another word that sounds very similar.

Dean Cherny 31:28
And so they started getting all of these complaints. And I'm like, and they call me and I go, Dean, we've got a bit of a problem, you put a swear word on or I'm like, well, it's not a swear word, it's funky, you know. And then they're like, well, we can't have it, like we're getting too many. So like a digital version, these days, where I can edit a song and then just re upload it. So I literally had to remake this whole cassette with the start of that song, edit it out,

Dean Cherny 31:57
and then resend them to all the stores. So you know, for two weeks, they were playing the last month because it anyway, that was my first lyric check failure. But again, that's a classic example of where it wasn't a problem with the Lyric, but the perception by the customer was and so that really was a really important lesson lesson for me to sort of understand it might sound okay, you know, oh, I might think it's okay. But it actually doesn't sound okay. So moving on to compliance these days, it's a big piece, like most of the large retailers

Dean Cherny 32:35
have have quite stringent policies with their team that they have to play the right music, but you know, the company supply of music, but if they don't, you know, they can get in, they can get into trouble if an area manager sort of comes in. And so one of the things we actually recently have started rolling out with new clients is actually we built our own compliance cable, which plugs into our media player, so it doesn't use the general headphone jack that you would use to plug in your phone, or any of those kinds of things. And it actually plays through one of the other ports. So if you unplugged it, you couldn't actually plug your own device in. So we've started rolling that out with every new client to ensure that they don't run into those, they don't run into the guy who programmed the music in my local supermarket.

Salena Knight 33:26
Right? Okay. I think this is one of the like one of the lessons, I always say that there are lessons that big brands do that we like they've paid all the money for the market research for the testing to see whether something works. And then we can just take that and implement it into our independent retail businesses in whatever way suits us. And I think this is one of the things that we can take, because I know that when you and I were talking, I was like, Is this a really expensive thing? And you're like, actually, it's it's not. So if you are interested in a playlist that works for your business, definitely reach out to Dean and his team. And we'll give you his details in a minute. But where I'm going from that is the fact that if you have if you're leaving this at the behest of either yourself in a store or your team, and you don't have a policy around it, which I'm gonna go out on a limb and say 99.9% of people who are listening to this podcast have no policy around what what is acceptable music in their store and when it can be paid, then how much money are we losing? And how much money we have? How many people are we turning away because the music just isn't the right fit. So one of these things we're taking away from big business music makes us money. The right music makes us money. Yeah. And to some kind of compliance is required from your team you and it's not even just playing the radio is it like that? That's to me, feel like that's a cop out? Because what if you're tasting music? Isn't your customers tasting music? And I think that's another key takeaway I've come away with

Dean Cherny 35:00
is, it's not about you, it's about your brand. And it's about your customer, you don't fit in the middle at all. Correct. And there's so there's a couple of things on that. Like, I think radio is a terrible choice. Like, you know, the DJ is on radio, the amount of nattering and rubbish that they talk, I would, I would walk out of a store, if I heard radio, and, you know, had to listen to some of that stuff. And sure, there's digital radio stations that are sort of out there that, you know, again, some of them have their own compliance issues, they're not necessarily for commercial purposes, and things like that. And then a lot of businesses, especially independent, smaller ones, that don't necessarily have the systems in place, you know, they'll use something like a Spotify, which is a non commercial service. And again, I think the issue is in regard to that, you're leaving your staff with 100 plus million 100 million plus songs to choose from, if you're not in that store controlling that, then they're going to go wherever they want, they're not going to be thinking about the music that changes during the day, they'll stick something on at the start of the day. And then they'll maybe play, you know that for the whole day, and it won't have changed. And it just wouldn't have changed as the day changes and do things like that, you know, our system allows ads to be uploaded, if you want to do messaging, you know, and it doesn't have to be sales stuff, it can be brand building things. And we've got text to voice where you can literally just type in an ad and select a voice and upload an ad. So you've got all of these other things where you can, you can set it, but I know you sort of mentioned the the pricing as well, like, it isn't an expensive platform, but if you are using. So when people are doing music, and they're written in a commercial environment, and anyone is sort of the music provider that you play, pay, and then there's also public performance fees that you need to pay. So if you're not using a commercial supplier, like us, you end up by paying about $400 More than a year in your public performance fees, if that makes sense. Yeah, so

Salena Knight 37:14
that's good. Service. So I was just gonna say so, you know, you could get a fully business orientated service, almost for the same price is just using something else. And it will probably be the same once you factor into the cost of paying for Spotify, because you wouldn't want to do Spotify freemium, because then you're gonna get ads in their ads. Yeah, I was gonna say, I'm assuming it's the same in America as it is here where legally we are required to have a license if you play music in a retail store. And that license price varies depending on how many locations and whatnot and but also, if you use something like Spotify, that's not included in the base license, you actually have to pay another fee on top. And I think a lot of people who are probably even in Australia didn't even realize that their license doesn't include streaming on something like Spotify. And for the price of what that license is you could have something that is built for your brand is compliance specific for your stores, is going to keep your EA has that dynamic, dynamic dynamicism was the dynamics, I'm happy with that it changes throughout the day. Yeah, it's going to take keep your team as vibed up as it is the customers and it is going to represent your brand values, because these are the kinds of things you've got to be thinking about, which in turn is potentially going to give you a 10% uplift, when we add all those things together. Great. Great. To me, it's like why wouldn't you do it?

Dean Cherny 38:47
That's, that's been our selling point for a very long time. So I am

Salena Knight 38:51
okay, Dean, I could talk to you about all have this whole thing about brand values, but we've been talking for a while. So if people have realized that actually, you know what I would like a really easy, potentially 9.3% In uplift in my sales. And I would really like my team to be engaged with the music and my customers to actually not be engaged because we kind of don't want them to be engaged in the sense that if they notice it, it's not good for us. How can they get in contact with you look out through our website is easiest, which is store play.com.au You know, not Play Store, not like Google Play Store where store and play whereas there

Dean Cherny 39:33
so store play.com.au And you know, it's we've essentially built it, you know, for lots of small businesses so we take a lot of those learnings out of the enterprise that we do and literally with our platform, you can sign up on the spot. And you know, if you're in Australia, we can also cover your

Dean Cherny 39:55
you know, your one one music which is your public performance license, so it's literally a one stop shop

Dean Cherny 40:00
have, you know, it's music in minutes, essentially. So you can select the program that you want, you can select the size of your store, or whichever it is. And then you just subscribe. And then you get access to the program that you select. And it's generally like, over 24 hours, we update them all,

Dean Cherny 40:20
every month, not completely, that we refresh them all, you can swap them out if you want. So you might do, we can even talk about that about the fact that we should be refreshing it because it's just gonna get stale and boring. Ah, thank you for bringing that up. We do all of those things. And, you know, as we haven't discussed, but you know, we also do scenting and digital signage, and all of those kinds of things. So, you know, we're really trying to turn store play into a sensory retail experience platform, which essentially does sound being music, sight, being digital signage, and smell being scenting. And we do it all with text.

Salena Knight 41:03
I love it. I love it. And can I just clarify, before we finish up, thank you so much for everything that you've given us. If people are not in Australia, they can still subscribe to your service campaign is great. us can do the public licensing right side of things. Because yes, we have the ability to do it in Australia.

Salena Knight 41:21
They're not overseas. Okay. I just wanted to make sure because I know we have a lot of listeners in Canada and the US and the UK. So which you know what, at the end of the day with currency conversion, right now, this is like cheapest chips. It's good value.

Dean Cherny 41:34
We're just about to roll out Smeagol in the UK, which is very exciting. So we're doing their music and signage in the UK

Salena Knight 41:43
to be live in the next couple of weeks. Awesome. Congratulations. Alright, Dean, thank you so much for sharing all of this with us. I had a great conversation. And I think I know more about, like, I love music. But I think I know more about how music works inside of retail than I ever actually realized. So thank you for that. Thank you. And if anyone's got any other queries, I'm obviously happy to sort of answered them, you know, via email, or, or whichever. Awesome, thank you.

Salena Knight 42:12
So that's a wrap. I'd love to hear what insight you've gotten from this episode, and how you're going to put it into action. If you're a social kind of person, follow me at the Selenite. And make sure to leave a comment and let me know. And if this episode made you think a little bit differently, or gave you some inspiration, or perhaps gave you the kick that you needed to take action. Then please take a couple of minutes to leave me a review on your platform of choice. Because the more reviews the show gets, the more independent retail and E commerce stores just like yours, that we can help to scale. And when that happens, it's a win for you. A win for your community, and a win for your customers. I'll see you on the next episode.

Dean Cherny of Marketing Melodies and Storeplay.

As the founder and CEO of Marketing Melodies and Storeplay, Dean’s passion for music is evident from an accomplished career as a DJ and entrepreneur. From humble beginnings creating mix tapes for retailers in the 90s, Dean has grown Marketing Melodies to become one of the largest retail technology suppliers in ANZ, providing music for more than 7,000 stores.Dean’s tenacious nature and intrinsic love of innovation led him to develop Storeplay, the first app-based background music platform for business in 2012. Storeplay has since morphed into the only sensory retail experience company in the world that improves store performance through music, signage, scenting and queue management - all wrapped in its own Retail Media Network. Dean is an active member of the global technology community and a trailblazer in the music industry.